Sunday Surf Poem: Surf-Casting by W.S. Merwin

Is this a poem about surfing? Perhaps not. And that’s perhaps why it’s so excellent. Let me present: Surf-Casting by W.S. Merwin. 

W. S. Merwin was an American poet who wrote fifty books of poetry and prose, and won a Pulitzer in 1971 and 2009. He’s known for his unpunctuated poems written from a palm  on the remote north shore of Maui.

According to the New Yorker Magazine, he bought the property in 1977, and began restoring the ancient trees lost when loggers and the commercial pineapple and sugar farmers started to move in more than a century ago. He died in 2019, aged 91.

Surf-Casting

It has to be the end of the day
the hour of one star
the beach has to be a naked slab
and you have to have practised a long time
with the last moments of fish
sending them to look for the middle of the sea
until your fingers
can play back whole voyages

then you send out one
of your toes for bait
hoping it’s the right evening
you have ten chances

the moon rises from the surf
your hands listen
if only the great Foot is running
if only it will strike
and you can bring it to shore

in two strides it will take you
to the emperor’s palace
stamp stamp the gates will open
he will present you with half of his kingdom
and his only daughter

and the next night you will come back
to fish for the Hand

P.S. Surf casting is a fishing technique.

Author: The Wipeout Weekly team